Out with the Old !

Still flat out even though harvest is finished, we have managed to get the cane watered so it looks like cane now. We have come to the last block of "the Traditional" row spacing 5 foot that we have left and it has been rotary hoed out and the block is being laser leveled in preparation for the 2 meter beds to be formed and some soybean to be planted.We are also applying the second application of fertilizer along with cane grub control chemical, we have had some hot days here already and we have cracked 40 degrees already , all of the ratoon blocks have still only been watered once such is the water holding capacity that we have now.

Harvest Video

Don't know if this will work but I will give it a go, this is us harvesting 150tph (60 tpa) dual row!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnCXO0SQowA

Check this out !

If you ever wanted to see a great example of the difference between the new permanent bed farming system and traditional tillage farming this is it. Even though we have adopted the new two meter row spacing, to get to that we had to conventionally till the farm to get it over to the new system. Have a look at the two photo's the first is the tilled plant cane that has been irrigated three times, ( it is so dry because we have been harvesting everyday up until now and couldn't get to do it not ideal)and the second photo is the cane that was planted directly into the permanent beds and has only been irrigated twice, this cane was planted within days of each other.

What a month.

Well what a month it has been it has been like my life has been put into "fast forward" after our Brazilian visitors it was a couple more days in the harvester then off to Perth to give my Nuffield presentation , it was great to catch up with my mates from that year who were also presenting, it is like we all saw each other yesterday such is the bond we have from our Nuffield experience. So my presentation went well and now a lot more people realize the importance of the Sugarcane industry. Somehow I lost a day and thought I would return on Saturday but in fact would not get home until Sunday afternoon. After a long sleepless overnight flight , we pretty much traveled across the country diagonally, it was back in the harvester Monday to finish the rest of our crop. We didn't do to bad considering that we had no early plant cane and all of our crop was harvested pre 12 months of age, we averaged 105 tph or in old school 42 tons per acre @ 14.5 ccs. We had Tuesday for maintenance and then we started to harvest our neighbors farms to help them get there crop off and we have been doing that up until yesterday, our farm has suffered but we felt obliged to help our fellow farmers. Oh yeah we had a day off last Friday when we hosted some more international visitors this time from Mauritius, and Tanzania these guys were here to look at how we have adapted industry research into a new farming system and to see first hand the benefits that come from it. I have posted a photo of some of these guys inspecting our min till plant crop that still has only had two irrigation's since planting.

Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Visitors.

We last week hosted a delegation of Brazilian Sugarcane industry people these guys comprised , millers, agronomist, and agricultural engineers,they were at our farm to look at the way we have adopted new techniques to be more cost effective and to improve our production, and overall sustainability. These guys are dealing with the same pressures as we are but on a much larger scale, they are moving into more mechanization of there very large farming enterprises, the big difference with these guys is that they generally own the farms and the mills that crush the sugarcane, and plants that produce ethanol.These guys see the Australian sugarcane farming sector as the benchmark when it comes to the cutting edge of farming systems,and environmental responsibility.I am sure that it won't be long before they surpass us in this area , they seem to value, much more the role research and extension has to play in there businesses future. Once again I have to highlight the irony that I see in Australians own view of research, we have never had a delegation of Australian millers Ag engineers and people at that level of industry ever come to look at what is going on in there own backyard, we have pretty much had more interest from overseas than here in our own country!

Update on No-Till plant cane.

Just a quick update on our 2013 plant cane the new system that was planted back into the existing beds has just had it's second irrigation and the conventionally prepared field has had it's 3rd irrigation.It has been a bit slower to emerge but is really starting to kick on now that the weather is warming up more, we are quite pleased with the results so far but what really matters is what we send to the mill next year and how many dollars per hectare we get to put into our pockets. We are tracking our costs for both fields so will know exactly what the savings will be.

Sugarcane to Sugar.

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I mentioned in my last post how well the sugar mills have been performing this year , so I took the opportunity to have a guided tour through with my brother and one of our friends. It is an impressive operation when in full swing from the automation to the shear amount of volume that it pumps through in one day. This mill is "Invicta" and is 100k's from our farm, it has a through put capability (through the roller mill) of 1050 tonne per hour of sugarcane, and is the largest mill in the Burdekin and in the country I think? In a nut shell this plant squeezes the juice out of the cane, clarifies the juice, then processes juice to syrup, then seed sugar is added to grow crystal sugar from the syrup, then the sugar is put through centrifuges to spin out excess liquid (Molasses)sugar is then dried and sent to port for storage and export.The best part is that it is all powered by the fibre left from squeezing the juice out of the cane,this is called bagasse this is fed into furnaces that heat water to create steam to power turbines that generate electricity to power the whole operation, not only is the process self sufficient there is enough steam to power a 38 mega watt generator that feeds back into the electricity grid.